Pets 101

Reggie: Part Dog, Part Dinosaur

Reggie is a mutt. I knew this when we adopted her, and it’s one of my favorite things about her. She has the face of a Jack Russell Terrier, the coloring of a Beagle, and the teeth of a Tyrannosaurus Rex.

Okay, maybe she’s not one-third dinosaur, but the girl has some seriously strong chompers. I’ve grown up with dogs my entire life, and never have I seen one demolish things with their mouth quite like Reg. I know, I know—puppies chew. I might even say it’s their “thing.” But, Reggie takes it to a whole new level. There appears to be nothing she cannot destroy with the sheer power of her puppy/dinosaur teeth.

Exhibit A:

What a cool green bone!

The remains. R.I.P. cool green bone.

On the one hand, Reggie’s chewing powers are good—it means her teeth and jaw are healthy, and that she can protect me in the event of a zombie apocalypse. At the same time though, sometimes I wonder why I don’t just feed her dollar bills directly, as opposed to spending money on toys and then having her eat them within the first 24 hours.

Her favorite frisbee…lasted one night

I guess the real problem is that because she is such a heavy chewer, it’s hard to keep her occupied—she’ll sit down to play by herself, and before I know it the floor is covered with scraps of toy…and she’s bored again. Fortunately, she doesn’t eat the toys, which could cause potentially harmful stomach obstructions or other internal maladies. Instead she prefers to scatter the pieces around the apartment for me to pick up, which is annoying, but I’ll take that over a sick puppy any day.

Rawhides, thick plastics, tennis balls of all sizes and colors, toys that say “guaranteed long-lasting fun for heavy-chewers!”—all gone in the blink of an eye. I admire her tenacity, I really do, but sometimes I’m sad to see such cute and fun toys end up obliterated and in the trash. As far as chewing things that aren’t hers—and cost considerably more than a KONG ball—well that doesn’t happen too often, but it’s another story for another day.

Amazingly, a couple of toys have managed to withstand her ferocious bite. Racquetballs are her favorite new thing to play fetch with, and as far as I can tell, she hasn’t managed to even make a tooth dent in one. Shin bones from the butcher are another thing that have worked—the marrow takes about 1.5 seconds for her to eat, but she’ll chew on the bones for hours (she only gets these once a week or so).

The world’s toughest frog

And most miraculously—a super cheap stuffed frog that was the first toy we ever bought her (it was waiting for her in her bed the day we brought her home). I like to think she’s being sentimental, and loves her froggy too much to destroy it. Either that or it’s made of some new, weird, incredibly soft kryptonite.

Maybe Reggie will outgrow this monster-mash phase, or maybe she’ll forever be destroying her toys. As long as she continues to be happy, I’ll be glad with whatever happens.